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Last week, after much planning, packing, and stress, I got in a canoe with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
corivax and shadowblue and spent three days paddling down the Columbia. These are the records of our exploits.
Things about the river that I would change:
Map of the trip, green dots are campsites:
We had a lot of very nice maps, but ended up using a crappy plasticized map instead for the most part. Having a third person along to consult maps and check things out with binoculars was good.
We got started late, of course. And then we had trouble with the canoe mounting.
But that was sorted out and we finally put in to the water around 14:30 on Friday afternoon.
I was disappointed not to see any other human-powered travelers on the river. A couple of kayaks, but they had obviously been launched locally and weren't going any distance. We saw some other campers, but they had all arrived by means of motorized propulsion. Oh well.
Let me tell you about wingdams. A wingdam is a device constructed to force the current of a river into the center, to keep the main shipping channel self-dredging. There are either a line of pilings or a mound of rocks, though we only saw the former. They can be very hard to see and are general a large hazard to small boats. Even if you don't hit them, the current gets all weird as you go around them, and they force you to keep quite a ways out from shore.
They're even more ominous in rough weather:
Unfortunately, we started so late we didn't even get close to the first camping site, a developed campground on Sand Island Marine Park, near St. Helens, OR. By the time we really realized this, we were in a section of the river with no camping opportunities. The wind had picked up, so we couldn't safely cross the river, and on our side was National Wildlife Refuge for the next several miles. No camping allowed. Since it was camp or canoe all night, we found a fairly secluded spot on a very narrow beach and set up camp after dark. At first we tried sleeping on the tent without actually erecting it, to keep our visual profile down. Sleeping under the stars is very romantic, unless there are mosquitoes. And there were. A lot of them.corivax, being a mutant, doesn't get bit by them. shadowblue and I, not being mutants, were less fortunate. So we laid there and suffered. About this time, just as were managing somehow to drop off to sleep, a very bright spotlight hit us. Our adrenal glands did a spittake. Turns out it was just a small sailboat which was forced to the edge of the channel by passing barges, trying to spot the wingdam we were hiding behind. Sleep was pretty much impossible after that, even after putting up the tent around 00:30. The tent hurt in some ways, because now were could now longer see where the water was. Waiting to be arrested or washed away -- not so restful. I got a couple uneasy hours of sleep wherein I dreamed I had solved our camping problem with a very complicated SQL query. I finally got up at 4:30 and gave up on sleep. I spent the next 90 minutes pacing the beach, waiting for the sun to come up. During this time I was very surprised to see a fullsize, completely empty sternwheeler steaming up the river. (Except it was probably dieseling up the river, natch.) The sun finally rose, we had a quick breakfast, broke camp and left by 8:30 without getting arrested or washed away. Everything was still wet from condesation and ended up more or less covered in sand. Blech.
The Celestial Wing, which delivers Honda cars. We saw it both inbound and outbound. This was from behind a low sandbar, which reminded me a lot of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia.
Paddling was pretty easy, for the most part. The greatest danger was wakes from motorboats and barges, which had to be taken head on to reduce the risk of a capsize. The barge wakes could be particularly huge, but they tended to be wider and smoother, making for an easier ride. The small and fast motorboat wakes didn't given the canoe a chance to rise up with them, forcing us to cut through them instead, often shipping some water over the side in the process.
At the end of the second day,shadowblue died. So we sent him to glory in a manner befitted a brave warrior. He will long be remembered in song.
The second night was a lot more comfortable. The island had no trespassing signs and cows on it, but my book listed it as a camping site. So we found a nice beach and set things We were bothered by neither owner nor bovine. In the morning we made bacon, which was very nice. It had a nice eastern exposure, so we got lots of sun in the morning and everything was dried off by the time we packed it up. This made for far less sand than previously. Sand still sucks, though.
Morning of the third day. We woke up to find ourselves in an REI catalog. Beautiful morning.
Unfortunately, the second campsite, while otherwise quite nice, was surrounded by mudflats at low tide. And high tide that far up the river didn't last very long, so we were forced to portage back to the river.
We got to pass right under the abandoned Trojan Nuclear Facility. It would have made an excellent lair for a mad scientist, if only it had actually been on an island. But it had forbidding cliffs, a dark forest, and, you know, a nuclear reactor.
At the end of the third day we were forced -- twice! -- from the water by bad weather. It was very exciting in a fighting against the elements kind of way. We sat on the beach for an hour, waiting for it to pass. It didn't.
So we turned around and went back to Prescott, where we found a very convenient public campground on the waterfront thatvixyish, our ride, could find. While waiting we were able to help a nice family get unstuck after they unwisely drove their Geo Metro onto the beach. I walked up, asked them for directions, and offered our help. It was very extroverted of me. With the help of our folding shovel, we got them unstuck in a couple of minutes. I do so love having the right tools for the job on-hand.
vixyish arrived soon after and we retired to Red Robin for a feast of carbs and protein. Good weekend. We got back home at 00:30 to find everyone talking about some hurricane called Katrina.
corivax and shadowblue and spent three days paddling down the Columbia. These are the records of our exploits.Things about the river that I would change:
- Mosquitoes
- Wing dams
- Motorboats
- Sand
Map of the trip, green dots are campsites:
We had a lot of very nice maps, but ended up using a crappy plasticized map instead for the most part. Having a third person along to consult maps and check things out with binoculars was good.
We got started late, of course. And then we had trouble with the canoe mounting.
But that was sorted out and we finally put in to the water around 14:30 on Friday afternoon.
I was disappointed not to see any other human-powered travelers on the river. A couple of kayaks, but they had obviously been launched locally and weren't going any distance. We saw some other campers, but they had all arrived by means of motorized propulsion. Oh well.
Let me tell you about wingdams. A wingdam is a device constructed to force the current of a river into the center, to keep the main shipping channel self-dredging. There are either a line of pilings or a mound of rocks, though we only saw the former. They can be very hard to see and are general a large hazard to small boats. Even if you don't hit them, the current gets all weird as you go around them, and they force you to keep quite a ways out from shore.
They're even more ominous in rough weather:
Unfortunately, we started so late we didn't even get close to the first camping site, a developed campground on Sand Island Marine Park, near St. Helens, OR. By the time we really realized this, we were in a section of the river with no camping opportunities. The wind had picked up, so we couldn't safely cross the river, and on our side was National Wildlife Refuge for the next several miles. No camping allowed. Since it was camp or canoe all night, we found a fairly secluded spot on a very narrow beach and set up camp after dark. At first we tried sleeping on the tent without actually erecting it, to keep our visual profile down. Sleeping under the stars is very romantic, unless there are mosquitoes. And there were. A lot of them.
corivax, being a mutant, doesn't get bit by them. shadowblue and I, not being mutants, were less fortunate. So we laid there and suffered. About this time, just as were managing somehow to drop off to sleep, a very bright spotlight hit us. Our adrenal glands did a spittake. Turns out it was just a small sailboat which was forced to the edge of the channel by passing barges, trying to spot the wingdam we were hiding behind. Sleep was pretty much impossible after that, even after putting up the tent around 00:30. The tent hurt in some ways, because now were could now longer see where the water was. Waiting to be arrested or washed away -- not so restful. I got a couple uneasy hours of sleep wherein I dreamed I had solved our camping problem with a very complicated SQL query. I finally got up at 4:30 and gave up on sleep. I spent the next 90 minutes pacing the beach, waiting for the sun to come up. During this time I was very surprised to see a fullsize, completely empty sternwheeler steaming up the river. (Except it was probably dieseling up the river, natch.) The sun finally rose, we had a quick breakfast, broke camp and left by 8:30 without getting arrested or washed away. Everything was still wet from condesation and ended up more or less covered in sand. Blech.The Celestial Wing, which delivers Honda cars. We saw it both inbound and outbound. This was from behind a low sandbar, which reminded me a lot of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia.
Paddling was pretty easy, for the most part. The greatest danger was wakes from motorboats and barges, which had to be taken head on to reduce the risk of a capsize. The barge wakes could be particularly huge, but they tended to be wider and smoother, making for an easier ride. The small and fast motorboat wakes didn't given the canoe a chance to rise up with them, forcing us to cut through them instead, often shipping some water over the side in the process.
At the end of the second day,
shadowblue died. So we sent him to glory in a manner befitted a brave warrior. He will long be remembered in song.The second night was a lot more comfortable. The island had no trespassing signs and cows on it, but my book listed it as a camping site. So we found a nice beach and set things We were bothered by neither owner nor bovine. In the morning we made bacon, which was very nice. It had a nice eastern exposure, so we got lots of sun in the morning and everything was dried off by the time we packed it up. This made for far less sand than previously. Sand still sucks, though.
Morning of the third day. We woke up to find ourselves in an REI catalog. Beautiful morning.
Unfortunately, the second campsite, while otherwise quite nice, was surrounded by mudflats at low tide. And high tide that far up the river didn't last very long, so we were forced to portage back to the river.
We got to pass right under the abandoned Trojan Nuclear Facility. It would have made an excellent lair for a mad scientist, if only it had actually been on an island. But it had forbidding cliffs, a dark forest, and, you know, a nuclear reactor.
At the end of the third day we were forced -- twice! -- from the water by bad weather. It was very exciting in a fighting against the elements kind of way. We sat on the beach for an hour, waiting for it to pass. It didn't.
So we turned around and went back to Prescott, where we found a very convenient public campground on the waterfront that
vixyish, our ride, could find. While waiting we were able to help a nice family get unstuck after they unwisely drove their Geo Metro onto the beach. I walked up, asked them for directions, and offered our help. It was very extroverted of me. With the help of our folding shovel, we got them unstuck in a couple of minutes. I do so love having the right tools for the job on-hand.vixyish arrived soon after and we retired to Red Robin for a feast of carbs and protein. Good weekend. We got back home at 00:30 to find everyone talking about some hurricane called Katrina.
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